Times Editorial Board: Let’s Have a Gang War!

Remember the good old days when the Left pretended to worry about “eliminationist rhetoric”? Now, they don’t even pretend to worry about a Bernie Sanders volunteer trying to murder Republican Congressmen.

Yesterday’s New York Times editorial on the judiciary illustrates how far around the bend the Democratic Party has gone:

With Republicans controlling the Senate and the judicial filibuster dead, the Democrats’ odds of denying President Trump a second Supreme Court appointment are slim. Barring some unforeseen development, the president will lock in a 5-to-4 conservative majority, shifting the court solidly to the right for a generation.

This is all the more reason for Democrats and progressives to take a page from “The Godfather” and go to the mattresses on this issue.

“Going to the mattresses” means starting a gang war. Despite the editorialists’ reference to The Godfather, one assumes they mean the phrase as a metaphor. But a metaphor for what? Given the current frequency of violence and threats of violence against Republicans, it would be reassuring if the Times would make it clear that the paper isn’t actually calling for Republicans to be murdered.

[T]his is the moment for Democrats to drive home to voters the crucial role that the judiciary plays in shaping this nation, and why the courts should be a key voting concern in Every. Single. Election.
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As hyperpartisanship, gridlock and a general abdication of responsibility have rendered Congress increasingly dysfunctional, the judiciary is taking an ever-greater hand in policy areas ranging from immigration to guns to ballot access to worker rights.

The Times really doesn’t seem to understand that the federal judiciary is not supposed to play a “crucial role in shaping this nation,” or to “tak[e] an ever-greater hand in policy areas….” That is the Democrats’ vision of the role of the judiciary, but not the Republicans’, or the Constitution’s.

[E]ven if Senate Democrats pull out all the stops, the political reality is that Republicans have been far more effective than Democrats at galvanizing their base around the judiciary.

Well, yeah. That is because conservative justices just decide cases, while liberal justices seek to play a “crucial role in shaping this nation” by “taking an ever-greater hand in policy areas,” always by tilting to the left. No wonder Republican voters are more up in arms about the judiciary than Democrats!

The New York Times has become a fount of intemperate rhetoric. Do you remember any conservative newspaper talking about Barack Obama this way? True, there are hardly any conservative newspapers, but still:

Even conservatives turned off by Mr. Trump’s sexual creepiness could be rallied around the prospect of claiming that [Scalia’s] seat.
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Long after Mr. Trump is nothing but a toxic memory, the federal judiciary — from the Supreme Court on down — will bear the smear of his fingerprints.

Perhaps the politest thing we can say about the New York Times editorialists is that they talk like people who have lost the argument.